


Someone Else's Universe

by rivendellrose



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9139555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: Everybody has to learn to cope with a cold and unfamiliar universe at some point... it's just the Doctor's bad luck he's never had to do it before.Written and posted on Livejournal in November of 2008.





	

It wasn't his universe. It wasn't his Earth, his England... it wasn't his _life_.

Rose had her own life here, now - she babysat her little brother for her mum, visited with her dad for the first time in her life, and had apparently made a fast and close friendship with Jake, and some of the other Torchwood personnel. The Doctor would have complained, but there wasn't really much he could say against Torchwood in _this_ universe. Here, the Torchwood Institute had been created after Queen Victoria was killed by a werewolf. They'd never even _heard_ of him - of anyone at all called the Doctor - let alone established him as their public enemy number one, so to speak.

Likewise, this universe's UNIT hadn't heard of him. He thought he'd finally found something familiar when he discovered them, but they turned out to be just as much of a loss as Torchwood.

"I'm looking for Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart," he told the young man at UNIT's front desk, when he arrived. The fellow looked familiar, he thought - someone he'd met with Martha, during the Sontaran incident, perhaps? "He might have had a promotion or two since I've seen him..."

"Of course. One moment, sir..."

The lilting Welsh accent brought the memory back. Jones... Ianto Jones, that was the name. One of Jack's people at Torchwood. Except he wasn't, in this universe, because in _this_ universe Jack Harkness hadn't been born yet; wouldn't be born for another three thousand years. Maybe he wouldn't be born at all. Rose hadn't been, after all... And yet here was Ianto Jones, looking exactly the same as the man the Doctor had met briefly over the teleconference, fresh-faced and intent. And shaking his head disappointedly.

"I'm sorry for the delay, sir," Ianto told the Doctor crisply. "I've found him, but... I'm afraid he's passed on, sir. In that mess with the Cybermen. I'm very sorry."

Cybermen. Of course. He'd probably tried to use guns, just like he always did... "So am I. Thank you, Mr. Jones."

Ianto's eyes narrowed. "How...?"

"Your nameplate."

"Ah. Of course." Ianto laughed. "Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?"

 _Elizabeth Shaw. Josephine Grant. John Benton. Mike Yates. Are_ any _of them alive here?_ Best not to ask, really. Already he felt as though his stomach had been carved out of his abdomen and left to dangle from his throat. "No, you've... done more than enough. Thank you."

There were other friends to look for, of course. Not Victoria - she would never have ended up in this time if not for his interference, and not the many others who were in the wrong time period to be found in this line. He could have gone to Australia, he supposed, and tried to look up Tegan, but who knew where she was and who she'd be, by now? If the Master hadn't interfered with her journey to Heathrow, if she'd become a stewardess like she'd wanted, if she'd never met him or Turlough or Nyssa, or seen the Daleks kill all those soldiers... Well, she'd hardly be the Tegan he knew, would she? And Ace? If he went to Perivale now and asked after Dorothy McShane, would he find a forty-something wife and mother of two who'd once dabbled in experimental chemistry, or would he get a lot of vague looks and eventually track down a police file on a disappearance, an assumed teenage runaway, back in 1986, who few people had given a second thought since? He didn't think his hearts... his _heart_ , could survive either of those, or any of the thousand possibilities in between.

It wasn't as if she'd recognize him, anyway.

"Sarah Jane's here, you know," Rose told him one morning at breakfast. "She works for one of the big papers, always investigating one thing or another. She'd done a piece on that whole Cyber Industry a full year before we showed up here, and thought there was something nasty at work there, under the covers."

"She's lucky she didn't get killed investigating it," the Doctor grumbled.

"I thought you'd be happy for her."

"She's not _my_ Sarah Jane, Rose. She's just someone with... with the same genetics." _Like I am to the other one. The_ real _Doctor, you'd say, wouldn't you, Rose?_

Rose nodded. She didn't eat the rest of her cereal, and left for the office a few minutes later, without saying goodbye.

That day, while he was out walking London in a haze, he saw Martha Jones. Or rather he _thought_ he saw Martha Jones - felt that jump of recognition in his heart, a lurch like it was trying to get up to speed with the other that wasn't there anymore, and he'd gotten right up to her side, touched her arm, shouted her name before she turned and looked at him with a blank face that was... not quite the same. Different somehow...

"Martha? Martha Jones?" he repeated, desperate for the connection. She wasn't _his_ Martha, but she was _here_ , she was...

"I'm Adeola. I'm sorry, but..." The voice was the same, but flat, tired... "I'm sorry," she repeated, and he wondered how he'd said those words so many times himself without realizing what little comfort they offered. The girl swallowed before she continued, as though she couldn't get the words out. "Martha was my cousin. A medical student. Were you one of her classmates?"

"I... met her at the hospital."

"When she was doing her internship. Right." Adeola nodded. "I'm sorry. Everybody says we look just like each other..."

"Of course. You do. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Yeah. You too."

 _She saved the world_ , he wanted to tell Adeola... but in _this_ universe, he didn't even know what Martha Jones might have done, or died before she could do. He nodded a last, distant goodbye to Martha's cousin, and slouched toward the train station. Best to just get home before...

He saw a familiar blaze of red hair in the crowd ahead of him. Heard a laugh that shot through to the depths of his stomach. Craned his neck, and caught sight of a familiar, hand-waving figure standing in the midst of a group of pert and starched business suits.

"I'm telling you, the president was _that_ close to me, and I thought... what the hell! I'm just a temp, right? What're they going to do - fire me? So I turned right around to him, and I said ''Scuse me, but I could do better than that secretary you've got right now... and I could do it without shagging the mailroom clerk, too.'"

"And what did he say?"

Donna Noble shrugged. "Took me on. Well... he investigated the secretary first, but I got a call the next day asking me to please show up at the _front_ office on Monday, and be dressed to work with the president! So here I am!" She waved her hands down an elegant suit, a trim briefcase hanging at her side. " _Personal assistant_... to the bleeding _President!_ "

It was so tempting. He could walk over right then, say hello, and finally start feeling like he was at home in this universe. Part of him, the part of him that _was_ her, was practically boiling to do it, to grab her hand and _run_ , leave behind Rose and Torchwood and all of this and just pretend to be himself - _themselves_ \- again. But _this_ Donna Noble had a place here. She had a job she loved, from the sound of it, or at least loved lording over her friends. He wondered if her grandfather was still around, if he still watched the skies with a telescope every clear night, or if her mother still sniped and complained about everything Donna did because no matter what it was, she had so much higher expectations for _her_ daughter than whatever it was that she accomplished. She probably was... He shook his head and laughed softly to himself. Good old Sylvia, Wilf... and _Donna_. Fantastic.

He turned to leave, then, but a well-manicured hand caught his sleeve.

"Oi, skinny boy. What were you looking at back there?"

The Doctor turned and met Donna's narrowed, suspicious eyes. "Donna Noble," he said, savouring the words on his tongue. Only a few weeks, and already he missed her this much... of course, it was always like that, wasn't it? He tried on a bright smile, even though it fitted badly at that moment.

"That's me. And I've got a guard, you know..." She looked as though she liked saying that, and it made him smile even more. Whoever the preisdent was, they had no idea what they'd gotten themselves in for. She'd probably be running the government inside a year, his Donna.

"I'm the Doctor. We've met. Well... a long time ago. Sort of. Anyway. Doubt you'd remember me..."

"Yeah. Right." Donna gave him a close look. "Well, I do see a lot of people in the president's office..."

"I bet you do. Oh, I bet you do. Anyway, always on the run, that's me, but... I have to say, it's good to see you again. Very good."

"All right..."

The Doctor shook her tentatively-outstretched hand. "Just take care, Donna Noble. You'll be fantastic."

"Right." Donna eyed him again, but this time she was obviously trying not to smile. "You, too, then."

"You know, I think I will be?" He grinned, squeezed her hand one last time, and then turned away, headed back to the house at a jog. There was a lot to do in a universe without Time Lords... Maybe there weren't Daleks in this universe, but there'd already been Cybermen, and just think what other nasties might be hiding in the shadows waiting to prey on an unprotected planet Earth. And of course _someone_ needed to keep Torchwood in line, make sure they didn't turn out like their counterparts in the universe he'd come from, not to mention keeping Rose out of trouble as much as was reasonably possible...

Come to that, he rather liked the idea of a whole universe that didn't know about him. It had been getting a bit tired, hadn't it, always having the scary alien menace know exactly who you were and what you were all about? Especially when they knew him from the future. Yes, that had been getting a bit awkward... In the end, he thought, this might all work out to his advantage, after all.

One last thought crossed his mind, and he turned abruptly, waving his arm to catch the attention of Donna as she glanced back his way, a curious expression on her face. "Oh, and Donna!" he shouted. "Say hello to your grandfather, will you? Tell him to keep an eye on the skies!"


End file.
